[cjbprime]

I don't quite agree, FWIW.

SC2 does seem to be at its twilight in Korea, and I agree progamers and fans there are super interested in Remastered.

But I don't think Remastered will be very popular outside KR. The SC2 "war chest" promo appears to have made more money than expected, as measured by hitting its funding ceiling within a few days.

So I don't think it's "Remastered replaces SC2", I think it's a divergence into KR playing Remastered and non-KR playing SC2, and the number of progamers and players doesn't have to be zero-sum: it could enlarge the population playing either game, too.

[hitekker]

I agree that Starcraft 2 won't suddenly drop dead. People do play it and FWIW, I liked it! I played all the expansions, online, and even the arcade mode. It was a good game.

But I disagree that Blizzard has faith in Starcraft 2 for America or any other country.

The removal of Starcraft 2 from Starcraft's English-Speaking homepage is one sign of finality. In-universe, Blizzard has also ended the main dramatic arc of Starcraft 2's story, leaving room only for half-hearted spin-offs.

Numbers-wise, we're seeing 50% drop-offs in user activity the last 2 years alone. Even with the release of "Legacy of the Void", the number of daily games played for 1v1 since 2015 have gone from 321,000 to 138,000. The new, much-advertised, much-worked-upon, Archon Mode has gone from 11,000 games a day to a measly 1,000 [1]. Not just because of Korean disinterest, we're seeing players leave across the board in all countries.

In 6 years, Starcraft 2 went from millions of players concurrently to an average of 20k a day.

Compare with the lifespans of League-of-Legends, Dota, Counterstrike, even the original Broodwar, and the reason for remastered becomes more obvious.

Blizzard knows Starcraft 2 won't lead to the resurgence of the RTS genre, so they're trying another route.

[1] http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sy=c...

[doppel]

As an esport / spectator sport, SC2 has been waning for a long time, and similarly the War Chest was capped at 200.000 for prize pool money and an unknown amount after that (which, compared to Dota 2 or League of Legends prize pools, is not a lot).

I think, given the matchmaking update for remastered, that SC1 will see a resurgence both inside and outside of KR, but I am not sure either SC1 or SC2 will stay competitive in the long run.